Weapons Of Instruction

Toy guns and swords can help kids make sense of the world, so long
as they know the difference between fantasy and
reality.

As a commentator on American culture—as well as a writer for
comic books and an author of graphic novels—I've gathered
hundreds of stories, over the years, about young people who have
benefited from superhero comics, action movies, cartoons, shoot-'em-up
video games, and rap and rock songs. What I've discovered is that
children often turn to fantasies of combat in order to feel stronger,
to access their emotions, to take control of their anxieties, to calm
themselves down in the face of real violence. They don't always use
these fantasies well. Sometimes they need help. But they often use them
splendidly to fight through emotional challenges and lift themselves to
new developmental levels.

One story in particular reflects the problem our society has in
dealing with issues of violence in realistic ways. Gina Weinberg, a
former public school teacher who'd quit her job to become a full-time
mother, soon found herself facing one of her biggest fears.

"When Harrison was very little, we took him to the circus, and he
wanted one of those light-up swords they sell there," she told me. "We
said no, but he really wanted it. And he wanted to know why he
couldn't have it. It was the first time [my husband] Allen and I had
encountered this situation, but we'd been discussing how we would
respond to it since before he was born. We said, 'Because swords are
for hurting people, and we're afraid that playing with one will teach
you to really hurt people.' "

First as a teacher and now as a mother, Gina was striving to be
thoughtful and conscientious. She described herself and her husband as
"like any new parents, insecure and not having a clue, relying on what
society says is the right way to raise a child. And every message I was
getting from society and the media was that violent play and violent
media would teach children to be violent. So our rule was no swords, no
guns, no TV shows or cartoons that showed anyone hurting anyone
else."

They also feared that aggressive play would exacerbate Harrison's
trouble in modulating his anger. He tended to feel almost every
negative emotion—sadness, fear, embarrassment—as anger.
He'd yell, throw things, slam doors.

Gina and Allen could see that Harrison was troubled by his inability
to control his impulses. He enjoyed helping enforce the no-violence
rule at first. Gina would take him shopping for Lego sets, and he'd
say: "Wait, Mom, we can't get this one. You see that little knight in
the back? He's got a sword!" Denying his own desire for toy weapons
seemed to give him a feeling of strength.

The situation changed as Harrison's little brother, Joseph, grew
older. By the time Joseph was 3 and Harrison was 6, the younger boy was
displaying a passion for swords. "I don't even know where he got the
idea," exclaimed Gina. "Suddenly everything he touched became a sword."
At first she tried taking them away, but Joseph would always turn a
broom or a pencil into a weapon. His parents started calling these toys
the "long things," telling Joseph that he could play with them only if
he used them like a magic wand. He tried, but the "long things" kept
turning back into swords. "Finally," Gina said, "I realized that this
little guy needed to have sword fights. I wasn't sure why. But I
could just see that he needed them."

Soon after the sword rule was relaxed, the Columbine killings
occurred. Gina felt bombarded, by the news media and other parents,
with the message that the two shooters had been turned into murderers
by video games and movies. Harrison's preschool teacher had felt that
violent play led to violent reality. Not only did she forbid
combat-related toys of any kind, but whenever a child acted out
aggressively, she'd draw the parents aside and ask what he was being
allowed to watch or play with at home.

Children often
turn to fantasies of combat in order to feel stronger, to access
their emotions, to take control of their anxieties.

Gina wondered if she was making a terrible mistake by allowing toy
weapons. But Allen didn't. He'd had a typical 1960s boyhood, had loved
toy guns and war movies, but had grown up to be a pacifist. "I told him
what I was hearing all around me," Gina recalled, "that the world is
more violent now, media violence is worse now, and so all this stuff is
riskier."

By that time, I'd encountered Harrison myself. He was in the same
kindergarten class as my son, and he was clearly one of the most
boisterous and imaginative students. I ran a comic strip workshop in
the classroom, and of all the stories, many of them filled with action
and combat, his stood out among the rest for its joyful, explosive,
fantastical violence. His protagonist was a fire-bellied toad who
jumped through a series of deadly traps featuring whirling knives and
then squashed his opponents, the "froggie killers," flat. As he walked
me through these huge, colorful images, his face was split in a huge
grin. He glowed with excitement over his comical mayhem, but he checked
my reaction, too-more often and more intently than most kids. The more
I liked it, the more he glowed.

I learned later that Harrison's imaginings had become the bases for
the class's favorite recess games. Both boys and girls would divide
into teams of "froggies" and "froggie killers" and fight ferocious
wars. Under slightly altered forms, like the "nature savers" vs. the
"nature killers," the games continued even into the 2nd grade.
"Superfrog" became a legend as he squashed, devoured, and burned up
villains to "keep the classroom safe." Outside of his house, Harrison
consistently generated his peer group's most thrilling, and happiest,
fantasies of bloodshed, combat, and superheroism.

At home, meanwhile, Harrison and Joseph put pressure on their
parents to make a decision about violent play. Harrison, in particular,
was having a tough time managing his anger. As he became more
self-aware, anxiety over his inability to control his reactions
intensified. He frequently behaved regressively. If something or
someone disappointed him, for example, one way to stifle his anger was
to pretend to be a baby and make cutesy crying noises. His parents
tried to help him find a middle ground between the extremes, but it was
difficult.

Joseph was also intense, but more adept at dealing with anger than
Harrison had been at the same age. "We noticed that both of them did
better when they played together," Gina told me, "and they usually did
best when the play was about some sort of power or fight fantasy. The
more we saw that working, the more we relaxed our rules. We even bought
this little toy that flings foam darts—as close to a real gun as
I could allow myself."

Then Allen started sharing his love of military vehicles and
equipment with Harrison. Gina asked him, "Don't you think that might
glorify war for him, or make him want to join the military someday?"
Allen just laughed and said: "Trust me. I've loved this stuff my whole
life. Nothing ever made me want to join the military. Not for an
instant."

Next Allen started playing a police game with the kids. Harrison
loved arresting and handcuffing his father.

"That's when the lights started to go on for me," said Gina. "All
these games made him feel powerful. We're so afraid of kids
getting out of control, or going in some direction that we can't
control, that we forget how little control they have. Harrison feels
like he can't control his own emotional reactions, he can't control his
brother or the anger that his brother brings up in him, he can't really
control his own life. Of course he needs to feel powerful."

By the time Harrison reached 2nd grade, Gina wanted to lift all her
restrictions against make-believe violence, but she still felt afraid.
So she consulted Eric Stein, a psychologist who has a particular
interest in play and fantasy. To Gina's surprise, Stein let his young
clients play with toy guns in his office. She asked him what she might
be teaching her children by allowing them to do the same.

His answer was simple, but it was a revelation. He told Gina that
one of the biggest challenges children face is distinguishing between
fantasy and reality. One of our most important tasks as adults is to
help them make that distinction. And the way to do that is to let them
have their fantasies.

We're so afraid of kids getting out of control, or going in some
direction that we can't control, that we forget how little control
they have, says one mother.

"All of a sudden, it hit me that all this time I had been
confusing fantasy and reality," Gina recalled. "This is a little boy
with a plastic sword, and I'm telling him, 'This might make you into a
violent person.' Think how confusing that must be when you're little.
Instead of hearing a parent say, 'That's a toy, that's fantasy, there's
no real danger in it, you have complete power over it,' he's hearing me
say, 'That scares me, that's more powerful than you are, that's going
to turn you into a killer!' "

Gina said she wants her sons to understand that they can imagine
anything, pretend anything, want anything. They can be mad at someone
in their minds, pretend they're shooting them, squashing them with a
steamroller—anything. They just shouldn't do, it.
"Teaching them the difference between thinking and doing is my main
job," she added, "and if my fears send the message that what they play
or see on some TV show is equivalent to real violence, that just
completely blows it out of the water!" She caught herself and laughed.
"Blows it out of the water! Is that a violent image or what?"

The essence of making sense of violent entertainment, toys, and
games is differentiating between what these things mean to kids and
what they mean to adults. Parents should let their kids experience
fantasy as fantasy while teaching them about reality. We also have to
see our own fantasies as fantasies, our own fears simply as fears, and
distinguish these clearly from the reality of kids' relationships with
violence.

Gina still limits the amount of television Harrison and Joseph watch
but more because of the limitations of the medium, not its violent
content. She still makes sure that all forms of entertainment in her
house are age-appropriate, and she tries not to let the boys' play get
so wild that anyone is hurt. But she leaves the rest up to their own
tastes and fantasies. Harrison still has some trouble modulating his
emotions, but now he far more often finds the middle ground that his
parents hoped he would.

"The change I see," Gina said, "is that when he's playing policeman
or soldier now, or when he's showing me his drawings of Superfrog being
strafed by an F-16 or whatever, I see a Harrison that I never saw
enough of before. He's an 8-year- old! Just a happy, confident, playful
boy who isn't afraid of his own feelings. I can see the worry about
whether he can handle his impulses lifting from him. And I can see that
that in itself gives him more power over them."

This essay is excerpted from Killing Monsters: Why Children Need
Fantasy, Super Heroes, and Make-Believe Violence by Gerard Jones.
Copyright (c) 2002. Reprinted by permission of Basic Books, a member of
the Perseus Books Group. All rights reserved.

In a March 28, 2001 interview, "Kids and
Violent Play,"Education
World talks with Jane Katch, author of Under Dead Man's Skin:
Discovering the Meaning of Children's Violent Play. "It is helpful
for a teacher or a parent to set rules for physical and emotional
safety as clearly as possible," says Ms. Katch.

"Are Violent Video Games Too Real for Kids?," an Oct. 31, 2001
article from ABCNews.com, provides
playtime tips for parents. Says psychologist Karen Binder-Brynes,
"Children, particularly boys, are playing video games right now because
they feel out of control. It does give them a temporary sense of some
type of control."

"Computer Games like Quake and Doom probably won't turn your son
into a killer. But what is happening to kids raised on the most
violent, interactive mass-media entertainment ever devised?," asks
author Paul Keegan in the November 1999 article "Culture
Quake," posted by Mother
Jones.

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